Retrograde
by Tinkerbell86
Summary: “Well excuse me for wanting to know if she’s okay!” I hollered back at her, flinging my arms, almost forgetting that I had my butterbeer glass in my hand.


This is a rewrite of my story, What Could Have Been. I hope you all enjoy it!

**Standard Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Harry Potter characters. They belong to JK Rowling and her alone. Anything else, is mine! xD

Thanks for Snitchsista, Caitlin, SlytherinPrincess55, WeasleyTwins (all from HPFF) and anyone else I've forgotten, thank for helping me with this chapter!

Please remember to review! ;)

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**Chapter One**

The Reunion

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_The sun was beating gently on her face, leaving a warm, orange glow. Her hair was brushing against her face. As I approached her, she looked more and more beautiful with every step. Her eyes, a chocolate brown, hair, vanilla blonde and her skin a light peach tone. _

_I'm about to do the most nerve wrecking thing any man could possibly think of doing. I'm about to ask the woman that I love, to marry me. That's right. Hermione Granger. The Muggle born witch who's the smartest witch of our age. She's smart, talented, and the most beautiful witch I've ever laid eyes on. _

_Bloody hell. I thought as I muscled my way towards her. What if she says no? What am I to do then? Heck, I might as well jump off a cliff if that's her answer. I've got no reason to live if she doesn't marry me. _

_Walking up to her, I watched her as she was picking out vegetables from the garden for mum. She was careful when picking up the delicate carrots, peas, lettuce, cucumbers, and other various vegetables. _

_Making sure I made no sound, I made my way towards her as she carefully placed each vegetable in the brown wicker basket that lay beside her. _

_She must of heard me coming towards her. _

_Crap. _

_Turning around to see who was the suspect of the noise, she lifted herself up and spoke, "Ron! You startled me!" she put her hand on her chest. _

"_Uh, sorry 'bout that," I apologized. _

"_What is it?" she asked as she picked up the wicker basket._

"_Well, um…..you see, I've got something I wanna tell you…and uh, " I spoke, my ears turning a bright red. _

"_Go on," she encouraged me. "No matter what you've done, you know I'll always be there for you!" _

"_It's not anything I've done, Hermione. Um, it's something that I wanna tell you, well show you…" I pulled my wand out from behind my pocket. I could tell she was confused by the look on her face, but by the time I showed my little display, she would understand. _

_I flicked my wand, that led out sparks of reds and pinks which, formed into the words of 'Will you marry me, Hermione?'. Noticing the look on her face, I knew she was surprised. _

"_Hermione?" I asked hesitantly as she said nothing. Did I do something wrong? Oh god. I must have. Was it too soon? _

_I snapped my fingers in front of her face to get her attention. She blinked her eyes from the sound and spoke, "What…oh!" _

"_Well? Will you?" I asked, cupping my hand around hers. _

"_Oh Ronald," she whispered softly, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and embracing me in a warm kiss. _

_At that moment, I knew what her answer was. I knew that she would be my love forever, for all eternity. _

_After a few more moments, she pushed me forward as she spoke, "I was wondering when you were going to ask me!" shoving me forward. _

"_Well, uh…" I slid my hand through my hair as I was trying to find the words to say. "I was just trying to find the right time to ask you!" _

_Rolling her eyes at me, she giggled. "Ron, anytime in the world would be the right time to ask me! What you did was brilliant, I loved it. I love you!" she jumped at me and kissed me once more. _

_I lifted her and spun her around, only too happy that she had said yes. _

I woke suddenly at the end of the dream I just had. That was the last happy moment that I had with the woman that I love. The woman that I was betrothed to spending the rest of my life with, and it was never going to happen. Never.

Shaking my head to rid of the dream, I rolled lazily to the left of my chair to grab the maroon blanket that lay on the wood floor. Instead, I fell out of my chair and onto the cool, wooden floor below me.

Lifting myself up, I looked at the circle clock on the wall and realized what time it was.

Half past seven.

Bloody hell.

I was supposed to be at Harry's at seven to go to the school. So much for being on time.

I quickly took a shower and once I had finished, I was dressed in a navy blue suit, with a white undershirt. I grabbed a tie from the drawer of my chestnut dresser and wrapped it around my neck. After I'd made a quick look in the floor length mirror, I apparated to Harry and Ginny's.

Once I arrived, I immediately heard cries of "Uncle Ron," from my three-year-old nephew, James and two-year-old Albus. Running up to me, James started complaining about what Albus had done the day before.

"Uncle Ron," James protested, a look of hatred on his face.

"Albus broke my new toy broom!" He pointed at his younger brother in anger, a frown appearing on his face.

"Did not!" Albus defended himself.

"Did so, you knew not to play with it and…" James shouted, but cut himself off when Harry entered the room.

"James, that will be enough. Stop yelling before you wake your sister!" He raised his eyebrows at James.

"But Dad," James complained again. "Albus knew that was the only toy broom that I've got! What am I going to do?""I'll talk to your mother and see what she says James," Harry winked at his son. At the mention of the word "Mother", Ginny came into the room, in her silky, silver nightgown. She looked like she wanted to rip her hair out by the distorted look on her face. When my sister looked like that, everyone knew not to mess with her.

"What will you talk to me about?" Ginny asked in a threatening tone. By the look on her face, Harry knew it wasn't a good time to ask about a new broom for James. Instead, he came up with another choice of words."Oh nothing," Harry began, blushing a little. "Just to tell you how beautiful you look this morning." He put his hand on Ginny's cheek and kissed her affectionately.

"What?" she replied, moving herself from his grasp. "You didn't like the way I looked yesterday morning?" She glared at him.

"Huh? No, it's just…" Harry broke off. It seemed as if Harry decided he'd better not say anything that would get her more upset than she already seemed to be.

"So Ron," Ginny turned to towards me and asked, "Work keeping you late again, huh?"

I told them about the recent activities that the Weasley Wizard Wheezes had been having over the past few months. After much discussion on the accomplishments the franchise had done, there was the faint sound of a crash being heard from the living room.

"What in the world?" Ginny turned her head in the direction of the and Albus jumped at the sound of their mother's voice. Seeing her coming into view, the two boys scurried up from their positions and ran upstairs.

"Boys, what…?" Ginny trailed off as she looked curiously at what had fallen and her jaw dropped. Her vase that she received from her mother was shattered.

Bending down to pick up the broken artifact, she took out her wand from behind her pocket and spoke the word, "_Reparo,_" and fixed her vase. "I swear. Those boys are going to be the end of me yet." Ginny sighed as she put her wand back into her pocket.

"They're only kids, Gin." Harry picked up the flowers that were sprung on the floor and placed them back into the vase while he walked into the kitchen and put some water to get them growing once again."Kids who are going to drive me up the wall if they don't quit bumping into that table every time I turn around," Ginny sighed. "I swear, one of these days I'm not going to be able to fix that thing anymore.""I'm sure they didn't mean anything by it," Harry told her truthfully. As he said that, cries could be heard from Lily's bedroom. Ginny threw her arms up in protest and Harry gave her a reassuring look that he'd go check on her.

While Harry walked up the spiral staircase towards Lily's room, I walked over towards my sister who now has plopped herself on the couch in front of the fire.

"Just been one of those days, eh?" asked as I sat myself next to her.

"You have no idea. This afternoon, I tried to get them to pick up their toys and they refused. They just took out more toys, which even made me more aggravated!" she told me as she laid her head on the couch.

We talked for awhile until Harry had come down from calming Lily, who had been woken up from the sound of James and Albus running by her room.

"I guess we should get going," Harry motioned as I got up from my comfortable perch. "The reunion will be starting soon and we don't want to be late."

I laughed.

"Yea, wouldn't want to end up in a detention, now would we?" I replied.

Harry smirked and threw his black dress coat over him.

"Are you going to say goodbye to the boys?" Ginny asked, yawning.

"They're too busy coming up with ways to destroy something else," Harry laughed, while Ginny glared at him. "They won't even know I'm gone. Plus, I probably won't stay that long anyway." Harry stated walked over to Ginny, kissed her passionately on the lips before he and I apparated to the gates of Hogwarts.

As we took the sight of the castle in, it's stony walls and cool night air, I couldn't imagine when everything seemed so peaceful and quite here. Constant battles, whether it be of friends, relationships or the war, there always seemed some sort of fighting and arguing going on inside the castles walls.

I looked up at the night sky. There wasn't a cloud in sight. I could easily pin point each constellation there was.

Making our way to the castle doors, the two of them could hear the sound of crickets and frogs, playing soft music. As the doors to the school opened, the sounds of footsteps could be heard, crushing the grass. More familiar faces were arriving at the school for the nights festivities. Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnigan, Neville and Hannah Longbottom - Neville, who was the schools Herbology professor there now - Padma Patil, the infamous Draco Malfoy, and several others had managed to take the night away from their families to come and catch up with old friends.

The heavy, wooden double oak doors to the castle swung open and allowed the guests to enter with ease. We made our way up to the doors of the Great Hall where the reunion was to take place. Inside, there were tables and chairs set all along the stone walls. As I looked up, I could see that the candles which floated gracefully in the air were apart of the celebration, much like they were with the welcome feast a the beginning of each new year. Also, clear as day, I could see the night sky through the roof of the castle.

As the crowd continued to file in, Harry and I took our seats at a table towards the middle of the Hall. Just as I had sat down, Dean, Seamus, Neville and Hannah had come over to greet us.

"Harry, Ron," Dean patted both our backs as he said his greetings. "How've you been?"

"Hey guys," I replied back as I took a sip of my butterbeer. "Couldn't be better."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean looked at me, confused.

"Oh nothing," I fibbed. "Have either of you heard if Hermione is coming?"

"Why do you want to know?" I heard a harsh voice behind me, who turned out to be Parvati Patil. From what was rumoured, she had been dating Evan Johnson, an unknown wizard, but she cheated on him and now was dating Rodger Davies. No more information has been said after that.

"Why? Do you know something that I don't Parvati?" I snapped at her. Hey, if she wants to be snappy about it, so can I!

"Oh, it's just seeing that you haven't talked to her since your break-up, that I wouldn't think you would have cared about her, that's all!" she almost shouted at me, in a tone that wasn't usually likely to be heard from her.

"Well excuse me for wanting to know if she's okay!" I hollered back at her, flinging my arms, almost forgetting that I had my butterbeer glass in my hand.

"Okay, look. I'm sorry," she apologized. "Hermione owled me today and said that she was terribly busy with work and couldn't make it to the reunion. But she said to say hi to everyone."

"Sounds just like her," I stated truthfully, with a small grin on my face.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Parvati glared, not taking her eyes off me.

"Nothing, just forget it!" I mouthed as I went to sit down in the pale white chair next to the round table.

"What was that about?" Harry asked in a concerned tone as he, Dean, Seamus, Neville and Hannah had all gathered around the table.

"Nothing," I mumbled, watching the other guests greet one another and talked about old times.

There was a eerie silence in the air. Something that doesn't happen very often.

After a few odd looks, from the others, Seamus broke the silence by talking about the last Quidditch match. "Did you guys see how the Tornadoes chaser tricked the Kestrels team in the match last weekend?"

"You mean by the seeker pulling the Wronski Feint? Yea, that was epic. I'm surprised if the seeker will make it out of St. Mungo's in a week," we all agreed by nodding our heads in silence.

Hannah looked over at Harry with a small curve on her face and asked, "How's your youngest doing, Harry?"

"Oh, Lily?" Harry replied happily. "She's doing well. The last couple nights she's been sleeping through the night, which is a relief to Ginny!"

"I'm sure. It's tough taking care of an infant, let alone two boys!" she gave him a comforting smile.

As the time flew by, we talked about our, wait scratch that. Their families and how their kids have grown throughout the years, old times at Hogwarts - the time where Hermione punched Malfoy still is my absolute favorite moment - and by the time midnight hit, It was time to go home and wish for another day.


End file.
